Farewell of a Humble Peasant
by HCBorn
Summary: My prose version of Li H'sen Chang's death scene in Talons of Weng-Chiang, with a surreptitious nod to another old enemy...


**Author's note:** Li H'sen Chang was a stage magician who appeared in the serial _The Talons of Weng-Chiang_, originally aired in 1977. The dialog follows the script exactly, parsed differently for effect here, except for the last line, which is my own invention.

"Celestial" is an old term for Chinese, now considered offensive. I used it because a) _Talons_ did too and b) it allowed me a nice little fanwank at the end.

_Doctor Who_ © the BBC.

* * *

Born into obscurity, he had clawed his way to a sort of tawdry fame, albeit through magic tricks. Most days, he could shrug off this humiliation. There were not many other routes to greatness for the son of a peasant from Peking. And, he told himself, it could have been worse. For so many of his countrymen, the world consisted solely of dark stairs, dark streets, the docks, the tongs. He was grateful for even the slight improvement he'd made on the myopic vision caused by traversing London's cobbled streets as an alien.

But still he yearned for better things than his catscratch existence, eking a subsistence out of illusory sleight of hand. So when the man called Greel had appeared on his doorstep claiming to possess knowledge of time travel, he had been all too eager to believe him, to build him an altar, to elevate the decaying shell to the status of a god. Gullible he'd been, like a mouse that had been tricked into the trap by the lure of cheese. Except he should have known better. He had not just vacated the cradle yesterday. What then could account for his grave misstep? He supposed it was his desires, so strong they had taken flight, reaching towards a mirage they convinced themselves was real.

But like so many men of faith, he had had that faith stolen from him, and replaced like a changeling with the twin banes of bitterness and doubt. As though he had fallen twenty stories to meet the pavement, he was so broken that, when it finally showed its pointed, twitchy nose, death proved to be something of a relief.

Whiskers brushing his leg, almost like a caress. But if he could feel, then he was not yet dead.

Smoke drifted from the pipe bowl, aimless and careless. Soft voices, familiar, far away yet near, drew the curtain from the memories of his earlier pain, but thankfully nothing more. It was the strange man and his assistant. H'sen Chang envied that man; though just as foreign as a celestial such as he, the Doctor fit in seamlessly with the population. A large part of it was surely his race, but it was not all. He simply had a confident air about him that allowed him to carry it off.

They were speaking in hushed tones, like persons in the presence of death. "Ah, we've found another warren. Weng-Chiang will show his hand."

"More girls?"

"Yes. He'll kill again tonight, but where?"

H'sen Chang had been listening, and he had decided. Though, point of fact, he had decided long ago. When he awoke in the rats' lair, surrounded by decaying flesh and putrefaction, abandoned by the man he'd thought a god.

"At the House of the Dragon, Doctor," he said, the weakness of his deteriorating condition coloring his voice.

Both forms turned to face him, their faces blurred by the influence of poppy and shrouded in shadow. "Good evening, Mr Chang. We thought you'd gone to meet your ancestors."

H'sen Chang allowed himself a secretive smile. "Not yet," he answered. "Not quite."

The girl expressed concern for his leg, a lost cause. The Doctor coaxed the story of his humiliation from him, to his dismay; but face had already been lost. More shame could not come simply from admitting it. The scene before him faded seamlessly into another: a gleaming jade palace, the beaming faces of his ancestors parading from it. He struggled against the mirage, desperate to avenge himself on that false god Weng-Chiang, but the pull of family was too great. It was past time he joined them; it had been so long...

As he died, he managed only to leave them with a riddle.

"What is it," the chagrined Doctor wondered, "with celestials and their puzzles?"


End file.
